


Black Eyes

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: After Life, Betrayal, Guilt, Happy Ending, M/M, Reincarnation, Revenge, Song Lyrics, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-08-23 14:47:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16621037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Arthur waits to be let loose so he can exact his revenge.





	Black Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Radical Face’s ‘Black Eyes’

_ When you last left me my blood was in a jar _

_ And you kept it on your mantelpiece _

Arthur can’t remember who he was before the murky, rippling glass he was trapped behind. He knows he was a soldier, of some kind. He’s got the white ropy ridges on his back and his arms, and a pink starburst on his abdomen. At least, he hopes they are the marks of an honorable man. He is cold though, always so cold in this in-between place. He can watch people, watch the world explode and expand. Sometimes he watches it shrink, watches it destroy.

He hates it. He watches as at the brothers bend the world to their whims. Watches the younger one lure the innocents into his home, watches him feast on their hopes, their bodies. He leaves them scattered across the lands, denies them even the peace of the final rest.

The young brother has something of his, but he does not remember what. It gnaws at him, this missing piece, and he cannot help but to wring his hands, rub his thumbs raw as he seethes.

_ I couldn’t count on anyone to stand there behind me _

_ And keep the dogs from dragging me off with them _

The older brother he hates more. He cannot explain it, the insane rage that sours in his heart when he looks up the skeleton brother. He knows this man. Knows that the sharp angles of him were once softer, that his gaunt cheeks were once full and rosy.

He knows it the way he once knew that the older brother was kind and generous and would have done everything to help those in need. Now though, he simply watches his brother spill havoc across the lands. He only ever intervenes when the people of the area revolt. When even their immortality is threatened by the rage of a people who will no longer serve as amusement for vicious gods.

They are not gods, though. Arthur feels it in the core of him. Sometimes, when the beings who tie him to the sour-murk place are feeling kind, they will allow Arthur to wander the other realm; the realm where the sun kisses his ever-cold skin, and the blossoms are sweet, and children laugh. When he visits, he tries to take the bones of the younger brother’s playthings and string them back together. He plants them beneath the trees of the forest neither brother touches.

He watched the skeleton beat his brother for a year once, when he dared enter the forest.

Arthur does not understand the fear. This forest is old, and gentle, and untouched by time.

_ While I slept you crept in and pulled the rug right out from under me _

_ Then the rain stole away and took the parts that kept me functioning _

The lake keepers told him that he was friends with brothers once, in a life before the murk. He scoffs at the thought. They tell him he loved them. They say he and the skeleton were as close as two could be, without being lovers, and that he trusted the young brother so much, Arthur gave him his life.

When they tell him that, he doubles over, and the starburst in his belly is set aflame. It burns in a way nothing does in the damp realm. It burns like nothing he has ever felt. It is the only sensation he feels in the murk realm aside from the cruel cold, and he hates the lake keepers for it. They laugh at him.

Sometimes the lady slinks up beside him. She rarely speaks to him, rarely acknowledges his presence. But when the star on his tummy burns out, she is there with cool fingers and true sleep. He only gets rest when she allows him. He hates her for it, and for the wistful stares she bestows on the skeleton.

Once, she told him her claim had been revoked, but she was still allowed to care for him.  He refused to let her touch him for many years after that.

_ And I said, this life ain’t no love song while I marched on blindly _

_ And my knuckles dragged across the walls _

His stays in the bright realm are becoming longer. The gate keepers do not understand it, how he manages to linger there. He doesn’t tell them how his head implodes on the other side. How sometimes, memories bombard him. How he sees an entire life on that side. One where he relives betrayal over and over and over until it consumes him. Until the flames of his scar are no longer painful, but are the heat that drive him.

He knows where the brothers’ stay, the one who murdered him and the one who didn’t stop it. He only ever finds their home when the gate keepers have found a way to call him back. When he can touch their china and their furs and their walls, but when they themselves are like specters to his fingers. He hovers, raps a somber drum beat against their wall and then he leaves.

_ And the birds up there mock me and the scenery’s turned wicked _

_ And your name is trapped beneath my tongue _

He knows his time in the murk is coming to an end, and so do the beast in the bright realm. They scream at him, when he visits. Before, when he was only part there, they could not touch him. Now they nest on his shoulders and sing a song of hate in his ears.

They tell him things, of the young brother. He stole from Arthur. Stole everything. His life, his kingdom, his lover. He kept Arthur’s gold, adorned his fingers with Arthur’s rings. He burned Arthur’s blood into the metal.

When he is hungry, and they are kind, they stop the branches from curling around Arthur like thorned whips. They drop seeds in his mouth, fresh and meaty and untouched by grubs. The seeds grow, curling through his jaw and down his throat. The fruits whisper to him Mordred’s name. Mordred, who burned the skeleton’s heart from his chest.

They won’t tell him the skeleton’s name, though. Perhaps because he does not truly wish to know.

_ All of the roads are one now, each choice is the same _

_ All the roads, they are one now, each choice is the same _

The lake lady is the one who tells him he is free. She says it like an apology, and offering. He accepts, cautiously. She has played games with him before, but there is a sincerity in her eyes. He asks “but where do I go?”

She doesn’t answer. She simply walks him to the bank and leaves him. He can see the forest, and the towns, and mountains, and strange rooms with unnatural lights and clinking coins. He sees the brothers everywhere. He watches the tension between them. The fights that leave buildings and rubble and reshape the landscapes. He sees how the younger brother brings the skeleton to his knees every time the young brother touches his thumbs to the skeleton’s lips.

He knows, the way he knew he was between life and death in the murk, that he must go to the brothers.

_ I won’t show my hands now, I know this ain’t a game _

_ All the roads, they are one now, each choice is… _

It’s a sickly sweet satisfaction when he stumbles upon them in a red-clay town. He doesn’t approach them, simply plucks a peach and watches from a distance. They can feel him, the brothers. They know he is here but they cannot see him.

He lingers and watches and if the world dims a little, well, he’s used to the murk.

_ Take a step, take another step, take another step, not a care for where they fall _

_ You burned me, yeah you’ve burned me, yeah you’ve burned me now one too many times _

The young brother finds him first. Arthur is napping beneath a dark berry bush, enjoying sleep in a way he never could in the murk. He’s almost awake when the young brother approaches, and his side. Oh god, his side burns and he thinks he might die once more, poisoned by the hate that greys his vision. He cocks his head, licks teeth that are too sharp, cuts his palms with claws where his fingers once were.

When the young brother touches him, Arthur feast. Blood, warm and sticky and oh so familiar, drips down his jaw, seeps between his fingers. He hears the young brother cry, beg for mercy. For one who has lived so long, the young brother is soft. His skin curls around Arthur’s wrist like silk ribbons, and his bones are like saplings under a gust of hurricane wind.

The young brother will not die though, even as Arthur sucks the breath from his lungs and creates starburst scars along his torso. He cannot kill the young god. That honor has already been claimed.

His vision does not clear until a skeleton hand pulls a broken hand up, and uncurls the fingers. He slips the ring onto Arthur’s thumb, and then hesitates. He wants to know, is Arthur going to kill him?

Because he will allow him to, if that is what Arthur desires.

_ My thoughts are the cold kind, I’ve got storm clouds that are brewing behind my eyes _

He screams for days. Skeleton takes him away from the red clay, away from the broken body of a boy who never finished growing up. He lets Arthur grieve in a sandy pit. Lets the salt of his tears create bitter lakes in places untouched by mortals. He stands, even as Arthur turns the grit around him into daggers his wails drive into the skeleton’s flesh.

When he is done, when his mouth no longer taste of loam and dried blood and stale carcass, the skeleton extends a hand to him. For the first time he really looks at the other man.

_ And my heart will be blacker than your eyes when I’m through with you _

The murk told him, many lives ago, that the skeleton had eyes that were as blue as a full summer sky. The creature before him has empty pupils; eyes that suck the light and life from all around him.

Arthur shudders as if he is cold, though he cannot remember that sensation.  The skeleton smiles, a toothy, infected thing, black-ice eyes glittering.

The world around them is unfamiliar when they finally emerge from the sands, but Arthur does not care. There are others, still roaming, whose bodies he intends to break. The skeleton taps glass-needle fingers to Arthur’s chest, eyes gleaming. Arthur’s heart stutters but he lets himself be dragged away, unconcerned about the darkness festering in his starburst stomach.

 


End file.
